As to the origin of uwabaki (also called bareishuzu), while I couldn’t find it anywhere on my 1st google(not even from the Japanese Wiki page), I would put my money (as an ex-Convent girl) on it …and bet that both the uwabaki and buruma (bloomers) originated as a package from … the British!

Although many have come to associate the uwabaki as typical Japanese footwear, Nipponia hints that the Japanese don’t consider the uwabaki footwear to be Japanese at all, but to be a foreign import:

“Modern Japan has taken on many Western habits, and shoes are now worn outside, to the almost complete exclusion of other footwear. But the custom of not wearing shoes in the home remains, and this has led to the use of uwabaki slippers in schools”.

The origin of the Uwabaki (and the Asian white canvas school shoes) was probably the early prototype of the British plimsoll or plimsole (British English)- which is a type of athletic shoe with a canvas upper and rubber sole, developed as beachwear or “sandshoe” as it also used to be known then, or alternatively also known as “pumps” with a little elasticated band (but not strap) in the 1830s by the Liverpool Rubber Company.

And eventually evolved into the “plimsolls(see above picture of school plimsolls without the stripe)” so-called from the 1870s, because it derived from the horizontal colored stripe that once ran along the upper part of the sole, which resembled the Plimsoll line on a ship’s hull. Like the line on ships, the stripe on the shoe was a kind of waterline (though it was clearly for just aesthetic purposes).

The interesting thing is that aside from the common attribution to the Brits for the creation of plimsolls, the Plimsoll company itself attributes the prototype Plimsoll to a made-for-the-Soviet-military-Hungarian-factory-shoe:

“The name aside, our take on Plimsoll was originally made in a factory just outside Budapest in Hungary, and is based on a shoe they have made there for over fifty years and was originally an exercise shoe for the soviet military. We have since moved production with the very same mold design to the far east for a clean looking version of the original. This gives our Plimsoll a vintage ‘old school’ feel.“–Plimsollshoes.com

“The plimsoll marked the beginning of the modern sport shoe and its origins are linked to the 19th century railways in the UK and the new habit of working class city dwellers taking annual trips to the seaside. Visits to the seashores by daytrippers in working boots seemed out of character so many chose to wear the new lightweight canvas topped rubber soled shoes because they were cheap and ideal for the sand. These were called sand shoes. At first the cotton canvas topped shoe had a sole made from leather, jute or rope but the footwear was flimsy and wore out quickly. Then the New Liverpool Rubber Company developed a light shoe which combined a cotton canvas top to a rubber sole. Sand shies were still vulnerable to separate so a thin rubber band was wrapped around the whole shoe trapping the join between the canvas and rubber sole. This made the footwear far more robust and the new style was called a plimsoll after the white plimsoll lines on ships which was introduced in 1876. Plimsolls wore well, kept the feet cool in the summer and dried quickly after a paddle in the sea.”

Since British (esp. the Irish, Scottish or Welsh) missionaries have a long history in the setting up of schools all over Asia …and although plimsolls are no longer just white in the UK, you’ll find that India (and the rest of the Brit. Commonwealth), as well as most of Southeast Asian schools still commonly adhere to some version of the white canvas plimsoll shoe as a part of their common school uniform.

In Japan, uwabakis were introduced not only for schools, but for hospital nurses as well. I would hazard a guess that uwabakis were likely introduced around the same time as the school bloomers (burumaブルマー)… the latter were introduced in Japan as women’s clothing for physical education in 1903. The plimsoll may have been introduced even earlier. It is said that 19th-century “cartoons in journals lampooned sandal-shod(the first uwabakis sandals or “sandshoes”?) students” and the Minister of Education Mori Arinori was actually assassinated in 1889 for having betrayed Japan’s traditional culture (source: Japanese Sports: A History, pps.69-70). In the course of the Meiji modernization drive, the Meiji government invited scholars from Europe and America to teach in the newly established school system, which included introducing to the students sports and athletics. Athletic track-and-field events were introduced at undokai sports day at various schools, the earliest of these was thought to have been the Naval Academy in Tokyo in 1874 at the initiative of British naval officers, but athletics really only took off with the arrival of the Englishman, Frederick Strange in 1875 who taught at Ichiko, the nation’s most prestigious preparatory academy… the college that became Tokyo University(pps 73-76). Uwabaki, following the English-led athletics initiative, by this time probably became standard footwear for students in schools.

The ubiquitous school canvas shoe/plimsoll tradition is thus a legacy of the 19th century Industrial Revolution-cotton industry-days, when rubber and cotton materials were the most common products of the then-modern factory, and due to their ubiquity, plimsolls remain the cheapest options for school shoes today.

Another answer as to why school canvas shoes are traditionally white, (you can blame the Brits too), Derek at “Put This On” says …

“If you get a pair of plimsolls, I recommend white, as nothing looks better in the summer. Some may worry that white canvas shoes are hard to keep clean. Personally, I think they look best with a little dirt on them. However, if you do want to keep them a bit brighter, try spraying a 50/50 mix of water and lemon juice, gently scrubbing for a bit, and letting them sit for a full day. For more serious stains, mix a tablespoon of baking soda and touch of water, and then rub the sticky paste onto the stain. Don’t worry too much about them though. They’re casual shoes and meant to be treated as such.”— Derek@PutThisOn

I suppose that the colour of the Japanese uwabaki has largely remained white (apart from being a form of sweet revenge by school administrators against all of us “monster parents” who have to do the washing) because…it helps to keep school costs down (coloured shoes are costlier), little feet grow quickly and change shoe size a few times a year).

Nevertheless, despite the practical considerations of Japanese parents, Japanese kids are rather prone to fashion fads, uwabaki manufacturers today have introduced a variety of coloured and reinforced-toeguard-and-soles in uwabakis in bright primary red/blue/green & yellow colours (see top of page pictured uwabakis, or this link or this power-shoes link). The colours are sometimes used to indicate the school grade.

Coloured uwabakis are actually already being sold, see the all-blue or all-pink uwabaki with anime “character” uwabaki below, but the coloured uwabaki ranks 25th in popularity (i.e. at the bottom).

It’s perhaps just a matter of time…and we will soon be seeing canvas shoes go the way of randoseru satchels that are now sold in the range of colours from the marvelous multi-coloured palette that kids can pick out from. You can also find truly creative “reformed” or “renovated” versions of the uwabaki at this page!

While some schools use the canvas uwabaki through upper senior high school, many middle and upper secondary schools now use gym sports shoes as uwabaki substitutes.

That, in short, is my take on the history of the humble school uwabaki.

7 comments

It’s great to see a blog about uwabaki and their history. I’ve worn plimsolls/pumps/daps all my life – like the white ones in the second image – although I mostly got black ones. I wore them all the time, but more recently it has become much more difficult to get good quality daps/pumps of the pull-on/elastic type, and impossible to get them in adult sizes with the rubber toe bumpers on like uwabaki have. A few years ago, a friend went to work in Japan, and on her first visit back home she was wearing uwabaki. (I think they wore them in the office where she worked – not sure) I thought they looked great and she said they were so comfy. She said that men wear them too – so I asked her to bring some back for me on her next visit home. I’ve been wearing uwabaki ever since! I wear them Indoors and out a lot of the time now. It would be great if they were readily available in the UK and more people wore them here. Other than my friend I’ve never seen anybody else wearing them. She brought several pairs for me on her trips home, but as she no longer works in Japan I have to get them off the internet now. It’s amazing to see all the fancy styles in uwabaki now – obviously mostly for girls and women – but the original type are great for general everyday wear. They always seem to last well – they’re robust and well made, and the rubber bumpers on the front stop your toes bursting through them! Love them!

Interesting comment about Chinese made uwabaki. So far, I’ve only ever had Japanese uwabaki – which are great. I’ve had quite a number of pairs of Chinese made daps/pumps/plimsolls – which seem to be the most widely sold daps in the UK today (in adult sizes anyway) – they’re very often made with really poor rubber and in my experience, can be completely worn out in less than a month!

They function as a type of Japanese slippers worn indoors at home, school or certain companies and public buildings where street shoes are prohibited.

Japanese culture mandates that people should remove their shoes when entering homes and other buildings, especially where the floors may have rugs, polished wood floors, or tatami (grass mats). Uwabaki are light, flexible shoes which are easy to slip on and off, designated for indoor use. As they are not generally worn outside, the soles are kept clean, and thus cleaning and maintenance of the building’s floors are kept to a minimum.

At the entrance of every school, from preschool to college, there is an assigned locker for each student to put his or her uwabaki. A student’s grade level is often indicated by a colored stripe across the toes; the body color of the slipper is always white. See Wikipedia and also this page: http://click-a-japan.com/uwabaki

It is thought in schools that the students possession must be in uniform and very simple and even the cheapest one. To avoid among students wanting that kind of school materials with characters.
School Materials with cute design and characters uwabaki costs double than the white and simple uwabakis.
It is one way of Japanese schools promoting the value of simplicity practicality and having possession because of its use not in its design characters. Teaching the parents and students in buying things wisely.